Arts and culture
On a cloudy Saturday morning, Carmen Román and her husband, Pierr Padilla, filled the basement of the Golden Gate Library in Oakland with a symphony of sounds, using their feet, hands and traditional Afro-Peruvian instruments. A small group of children shrieked with glee and bumbled around the room, dancing as their parents nodded to the beat being created by Román and Padilla opening and closing the top to their cajitas, a box-shaped Latin percussion instrument, and hitting it with a…
The Richmond Art Center has overcome much in recent years, including the closure forced on all during the pandemic and more recently, a significant loss in donations over the summer. As 2023 looms, Executive Director José Rivera says that despite bouncing back from the major revenue losses of 2020, the RAC is still in need of additional funding to return to its pre-pandemic level of operation. When Rivera was appointed in 2020, the RAC was just over $110,000 in the…
The parking lot of Richmond’s Veterans Memorial Hall is filled with the growling of engines as rows of hulking lowriders set up for an upcoming show. Just beyond the crisp chrome clad lines of a blue Chevy Impala, Daniel Vargas and Cruz Arroyo gently unpack tiny versions those classic cars they love but never could quite afford. From afar, Vargas and Arroyo’s remote-control miniature models may seem overshadowed by their larger counterparts. But at one-tenth scale, these lowrider replicas are…
At the Main Library in Richmond, time seems to stand still. The two-story building’s glass façade — said to be the first of its kind for a public library in the United States — allows the sunlight to filter in but keeps the hustle and bustle of city life out. With time-worn floor tiles and antiquated ceiling lights, the library makes very clear that it’s been around for a long time — actually, since Harry Truman was president. Romanticization of…
Amid the drug store offerings of Halloween consumer goods, any Dia de los Muertos-themed item invariably sticks out. Decorations featuring iconic skulls and cempasúchil marigolds, or candy branded with characters from Pixar’s film “Coco” speak to the growing commercialization of a holiday once outside of the corporate limelight. But the holiday has more cultural significance in Mexico, where it orginated. And on Saturday, the Richmond Art Center will share that tradition with a Dia de los Muertos-themed Fall Family Day,…
On a Sunday afternoon in late September, TC Ball entered Richmond’s Multicultural Bookstore with a cart full of kings, queens, bishops, rooks, knights, and pawns and boards to start the first of several chess classes for children. “Cool people play chess,” said Ball, 69, founder and director of the West Coast Chess Alliance in Richmond, as he prepared to start the class. He fell in love with chess about 40 years ago when he was at college, and then 13…
Robin Donovan’s 13-year-old son didn’t get to trick-or-treat last year because of the pandemic. Instead, he and some friends shared a big bag of candy in the family’s El Cerrito backyard. Donovan’s son wasn’t alone. “Normally we got a lot of trick-or-treaters, hundreds in the past. Last year we didn’t have any,” Donovan said. “When I talked to people last year, nobody was planning to send their kids trick-or-treating.” Donovan’s son, 12 at the time, was old enough to understand…
In honor of Indigenous People’s Day, the Richmond Art Center will host “Gathering in the Spirit of Gwarth-ee-lass,” a free event on Sunday featuring spoken word, candid conversations and live music, all in the backdrop of artist Rigo 23’s newest exhibit “Time and Again.” The exhibit’s centerpiece is a 12-foot sculpture created from a self-portrait of Native American political activist Leonard Peltier. Peltier has been in prison for about 45 years, serving two life sentences after his controversial conviction in…
It was a big week for Betty Reid Soskin, who turned 100 years old on Wednesday and was honored that day with the renaming of an El Sobrante middle school for her. Soskin has been an activist in the Bay Area and a park ranger in Richmond for many years and shows no sign of slowing down. She’s familiar to West Contra Costa school children who have taken her tours through Richmond’s National Historical Park, which has sites throughout the…